HYDERABAD, Feb 24: Family members a 70-year-old patient beat up a doctor and smashed panes of doors and windows of the casualty ward of the Civil Hospital after the death of their relative on Sunday.

Abdul Latif Khan, a retired employee of Customs Department, was brought to the hospital by his family members in a serious condition. He was suffering from prostrate problems.

Mohammad Jamil said that his father was in a serious condition and he was required to be shifted to ICU but doctors did not pay attention to him. “We brought him from Red Crescent Hospital in Latifabad Unit-6 on the advice of Dr Abdul Haq that my father should be kept in the ICU,” he said.

He complained that when he and his family brought him to the ward the doctors on duty did not pay any attention. “We kept shunting from one doctor to the other. The doctor on duty in the ICU said that all beds are occupied that’s why he can’t be admitted there. He was making an incorrect statement because I personally saw that four beds were vacant,” he claimed.

After the patient died in the casualty department the family members turned violent and smashed panes of the department’s door. They also reportedly beat up Dr Sikandar who had to take refuge in another ward.

An orthopaedic doctor who was present there refused to comment while Medical Superintendent Dr. Mohammad Waseem Shaikh said that the patient was examined by associate professor Shoaib Ansari, who happened to be in hospital on Sunday as he was leaving for protocol duty of Sindh chief minister.

He noted that the patient was shifted from a private hospital in a precarious state and he was not showing pulse or blood pressure. He told the family that he was not a patient of ICU ward because he first needed stability in condition only then could he be shifted to ICU if required.

The patient remained alive in hospital hardly for 10 to 15 minutes, he said.